VG sales numbers

[Nino]

I'm not sure if I am at liberty to reveal sale numbers, but they are better than anyone anticipated so far. I will ask if this is something I can release.

I share people's concerns about LFG in the coming months as well as the game gets more 'polished' and optimized. I actually sat down last night and tried to devise a more intuitive LFG system in anticipation. I am curious what folks think would make a LFG system better. So far I was thinking about having an auto-grouping feature that assigns a leader and groups people according to archetype, level, quest similarities, and region. You obviously have to consent to this. Also, since our world is so damned huge, I thought about devising some way to 'summon' a group member if the group is missing a specific archetype that is needed but the player is far away. This treads on taboo territory, so the solution would need to be clever enough to avoid travel exploits. I was also considering some type of generated 'ice breaker' system that could send messages to potential group mates. The main problem that I see, is that there are generally people who want to group, but they do not take initiative to become the leader and ask; or fail to join the LFG channel at all. What else is possible?

[vynde]

Originally Posted by Nino

I'm not sure if I am at liberty to reveal sale numbers, but they are better than anyone anticipated so far. I will ask if this is something I can release.

I share people's concerns about LFG in the coming months as well as the game gets more 'polished' and optimized. I actually sat down last night and tried to devise a more intuitive LFG system in anticipation. I am curious what folks think would make a LFG system better. So far I was thinking about having an auto-grouping feature that assigns a leader and groups people according to archetype, level, quest similarities, and region. You obviously have to consent to this. Also, since our world is so damned huge, I thought about devising some way to 'summon' a group member if the group is missing a specific archetype that is needed but the player is far away. This treads on taboo territory, so the solution would need to be clever enough to avoid travel exploits. I was also considering some type of generated 'ice breaker' system that could send messages to potential group mates. The main problem that I see, is that there are generally people who want to group, but they do not take initiative to become the leader and ask; or fail to join the LFG channel at all. What else is possible?

i think you have something there with the auto-grouping. i hope you guys dont mess it up like WoW's lfg system. the lfg channel was much better than the feature. and yeah i also think that you shouldnt include that summon feature. im sure people arent used to travelling the world again so they'd probably take advantage of that

[Bongk]

Originally Posted by kohl

Oh I understand. So basically, they made the game more challenging by making sure that if its just you logging in - maybe your friend can't play or something - you are SOL? Wow, thats some creative challenge.

Just as an FYI - there is a lot of content in WoW that you would miss if you went 1-70 solo both in regards to quests, instances, and practical experience. My guess is that people who decided to go that route would hit max level and find themselves having to go back and learn quite a bit. Unless VG prohibits you from soloing, I don't see why people couldn't do the same in that game as well - it would probably just take longer, but the end result would be the same.

you can solo in VG it is just ALOT slower than grouping, which imo it should be. In WoW it seemed all anyone wanted to do was solo unless they had a quest they wanted to complete or run an instance once. Grouping exp should always be far betetr than solo exp IMO.

I know other prefer the WoW model of doing things and that is why I am glad there are choices.

[Bongk]

Originally Posted by Nino

I'm not sure if I am at liberty to reveal sale numbers, but they are better than anyone anticipated so far. I will ask if this is something I can release.

I share people's concerns about LFG in the coming months as well as the game gets more 'polished' and optimized. I actually sat down last night and tried to devise a more intuitive LFG system in anticipation. I am curious what folks think would make a LFG system better. So far I was thinking about having an auto-grouping feature that assigns a leader and groups people according to archetype, level, quest similarities, and region. You obviously have to consent to this. Also, since our world is so damned huge, I thought about devising some way to 'summon' a group member if the group is missing a specific archetype that is needed but the player is far away. This treads on taboo territory, so the solution would need to be clever enough to avoid travel exploits. I was also considering some type of generated 'ice breaker' system that could send messages to potential group mates. The main problem that I see, is that there are generally people who want to group, but they do not take initiative to become the leader and ask; or fail to join the LFG channel at all. What else is possible?

The LFG interface in EQ1 was the best i have ever seen, why every game out doesn't copy it exactly I have no clue.

[Zuuljin]

Originally Posted by Bongk

The LFG interface in EQ1 was the best i have ever seen, why every game out doesn't copy it exactly I have no clue.

Agree'd. Just take their damn system.

[forge]

Nino just in case you did not read a few pages back in the other thread. This was semi already discussed.

http://www.fohguild.org/forums/mmorp...tml#post666145

[tad10]

1. LFG needs to be divided by continent -- useless to see Joe Psionicist in Coastal Graveyard when you need Joe Psionicist in CIS.

2. LFG needs to allow premier dungeon tags (Ark/Magi Hold/Tsang/ToD/CIS/etc). So you know who's looking for what.

3. LFM needs to be fleshed out with the above (LFM for CIS etc)

4 My two cent solution to the missing group member problem:

Allow Healers (and maybe Druid too) a 24 hour RT cooldown ability "vortex." This allows one far off summon a real-time day. Also anyone who gets summoned has their "vortex" ability used (to avoid abuse) if they have one. Assuming you're trying to form a group for say an evening of CIS grinding -- one summon/day should be more than enough. Majority of people are still going to have to hoof it.

[Ayeshala]

Nino,

You can find my suggestions concerning LFG here:

http://www.fohguild.org/forums/666173-post103.html

Part of the Gameplay suggestions thread as Forge pointed out. My personal favorite is the Group Proposals system (the last one)

Here, reposted to make it easier:

• Healers should be able to summon people within the same continent. If you want to avoid this being used for fast travel, punt the player back to the point he was summoned from after leaving the group. Give a 5 minutes grace period after relog if the person goes link death or crashes, but worst case scenario he gets punted and you just have to summon him again.
• Give summon spells to offensive casters, so they can summon healers.
• A Matchmaking system should be put into place that would dynamically suggest group setups from among the LFG crowd. All people should have to do is press the LFG button.
• People should be able to share quests they have already completed.
• All LFG options should be available from within vgplayers.com via a web interface. You should not even have to log on to the game to look for groups. When the group is formed, pressing one button should launch the game with the appropriate character. And no Smedley, you should'nt charge money for that option
• You should be able to tick off certain quests as being LFG specifically for those; the system would try to match together people doing the same quests.
• You should be able to select specific dungeons or chunks you are LFG for; the system will match you with people interested in the same.
• You should be able to create "Group proposals". You create a textual description of what the group would be about "I'm looking to start a group that would take on the first tier of quests for the dungeon of DwarvenName's Place." Then you would assign specific requirements that the group needs before starting (say, 1 tank, 1 healer, +2 more random classes). People can see you group proposals and subscribe to them; as soon as the system sees that the requirements are filled, the group is formed.

[Senen]

Yep just rip the LFG from EQ, best one thats ever been to date. It would be nice to beable to summon grp members long distances, I actualy liked that new fellowship idea being used in EQ with the campfires so you could get your normal grp together if x ammnt of people were on. Something like this with a timer for new additions to the fellowship attached so you couldnt drop people in to the fellowship to just randomly port them around the world.

[Bongk]

Originally Posted by Senen

Yep just rip the LFG from EQ, best one thats ever been to date. It would be nice to beable to summon grp members long distances, I actualy liked that new fellowship idea being used in EQ with the campfires so you could get your normal grp together if x ammnt of people were on. Something like this with a timer for new additions to the fellowship attached so you couldnt drop people in to the fellowship to just randomly port them around the world.

that is in VG and called caravans.

[Gaereth]

I think he means summon from one continent to the other, more along the lines of WOW's meeting stones.

[Greyform]

Originally Posted by Nino

I'm not sure if I am at liberty to reveal sale numbers, but they are better than anyone anticipated so far. I will ask if this is something I can release.

I share people's concerns about LFG in the coming months as well as the game gets more 'polished' and optimized. I actually sat down last night and tried to devise a more intuitive LFG system in anticipation. I am curious what folks think would make a LFG system better. So far I was thinking about having an auto-grouping feature that assigns a leader and groups people according to archetype, level, quest similarities, and region. You obviously have to consent to this. Also, since our world is so damned huge, I thought about devising some way to 'summon' a group member if the group is missing a specific archetype that is needed but the player is far away. This treads on taboo territory, so the solution would need to be clever enough to avoid travel exploits. I was also considering some type of generated 'ice breaker' system that could send messages to potential group mates. The main problem that I see, is that there are generally people who want to group, but they do not take initiative to become the leader and ask; or fail to join the LFG channel at all. What else is possible?

A lfg tool that lists the quests and/or dungeons you are looking for help with would help.

as far as sales numbers go can't we just play a game of over/under... let me start 100K over or under?

[Draegan]

I one MUD I played in years ago had a spell for Druids called Moonwell. Opened up a temp portal from one player to another anywhere in the game. This might help getting people together.

This might be much of a resource hog, but if you flag LFG you get thrown in a pool of others and you can search who has the same quests as you in their quest log. Perhaps as others mentioned, you can flag yourself for Dungeons and you can search this way.

[Kazgrim]

To paraphrase what someone else said before, you don't really need anything more than the basic /lfg flag, a search window, and perhaps a basic ability to summon a far away player to the group (and I could have sworn you already had all 3 of these things). What you need to do is modify the dungeon designs so that in the entrance areas and such there are 1 and 2 dot mobs people can solo while waiting for other players to show up to the dungeon. Right now a player goes up to the dungeon, sees a bunch of things they can't solo, and then goes off somewhere else. Groups should be forming up at the dungeons themselves like guk/seb/etc in EQ, not in Ironforge like it was in WoW (that was viable in wow due to instancing and flight paths for travel). The difference between EQ then and VG now is, instead of sitting at the zone in LFG gaining nothing, you could be atleast earning some solo xp while waiting on other players.

[Kidriot69]

After 2 weeks of Vanguard, i cancelled my sub.